Madras High Court today quashed the nomination of some members to Tamil Nadu Wakf Board and issued orders to reconstitute the board and eventual election of the new chairperson within three months.
Disposing of a batch of petitions, a division bench comprising Justices R Banumathi and K Ravichandra Baabu directed that till it was reconstituted, the Chief Executive Officer shall exercise all powers and functions of the board.
The pleas challenged the constitution of the board by a government order, contending that requisite conditions for exercise of power by state government were not satisfied.
Referring to Section 14 (4) of the Wakf Act, the bench said since the number of elected members is less than the nominated members, "till the election process is completed, the powers and functions of the remaining nine members of the Wakf Board cannot be exercised".
The board shall be reconstituted and members of the reconstituted board shall elect the new chairperson, it said.
The petitions also challenged the appointment of some nominated members and election of Tamizhmahan Hussain as Chairperson. They contended that the board was constituted with nine nominated members and four elected members, thereby violating Section 14(4), which stipulates that number of elected members shall be more than the nominated members.
They further contended that one of the respondents, a minister, nominated himself as a member of the board in the category of MLA and the board so set up would only serve the purpose of the government, which was in violation of rules.
According to the government, the powers conferred under Section 14(3) to enable government set up the board have been correctly invoked after government was fully satisfied that it was reasonably practicable to constitute electoral college relating to MPs and MLAs.
The bench said, "Being the Minister of Backward Classes, Most Backward Classes and Minorities Welfare Department, Mohammed Jan cannot be the original authority as well as the appellate/revisional authority."
"Had he been a Minister in some other department, there would not have been any impediment for him to be the member of the Wakf Board as well as the Minister," the bench said.
As for the nomination of Hussain as chairperson and one Farroq as a Board member, the bench said, "We find that the nomination of Hussain and Farooq in the category of eminent Muslims do not suffer from any arbitrariness.
